


Sweet Somethings

by weepingwillow



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bakery, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Dubious Consent, M/M, Magic, Magical Violence, mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-03-09 16:16:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13485192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingwillow/pseuds/weepingwillow
Summary: When Galahad inherited a shop from his grandfather and opened a bakery, he never expected the attention of the mafia. Now, they're breathing down the back of his neck. And if that wasn't enough, he has a gorgeous new customer who is so much more than he seems.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this is turning into a bit of an epic!
> 
> If you're enjoying the story, please check me out on [tumblr](https://stupidnobleidiot.tumblr.com/).

Galahad opens the shop door to let in the deliveries. It is early morning, the light is dim, the street lamps still fading sulphur orange. Galahad checks the labels on the cardboard boxes on the deliveries, and then he picks them up one by one and carries them to the store room in the back. Next, he takes the tin of whitewash from the bottom shelf of the store and opens it with the screwdriver that rests on top of it. He takes the brush that lies next to it, he dips it in the paint, and he carries it outside. And then he whitewashes out the pentacle that has been sprayed over the front of his shop overnight. He washes off the glass until it shines.

When the alarm on his phone rings at 6am to alert him that his dough has finished proving, he goes back inside and he locks up the shop. He washes his hands and puts on his apron. He turns on the radio, takes a deep breath, and he bakes.

At 8:30, Galahad unlocks the shop door. They come in straight away, the customers, for his fresh bread and his muffins. They come to drink coffee and eat breakfast and to buy cakes for their loved ones.

This is every morning. In the week, it is office workers on their way to business meetings. At the weekend there are young families, toddlers in search of gingerbread men. He makes cookies and cupcakes on a Saturday, oat bars and croissants in the week. He writes specials on the chalk board above the counter. His shelves are always full in the morning, empty by the time that they close.

Perhaps that is why the CMR hates him quite so much.

 

\---

 

“There, by the window.” Linet is brazenly pointing to a man who sits at a table for two with a cup of coffee and a shredded, uneated croissant. He is wearing a pale grey suit, one that looks expensive. He has dark hair, pale skin, and from where he sits he looks tall. He has a strange look in his eyes. He seems lost, or dazed.

“Put your hand down!” Galahad hisses, slapping at her arm, “He’ll see you!”

“Oh he won’t,” Linet says, “He’s not seeing anything right now, he’s been like this for hours. He came in while you were taking your nap.”

“And what about him?” Galahad asks, staring.

“I thought he was a critic at first, but he’s not eating anything. Whatever he is, he’s just your type,” Linet says, elbowing him and grinning. Galahad snaps his eyes away from the man and groans.

“Linet, I do not have the time for a boyfriend right now.”

“Who said anything about a boyfriend?” Linet teases. “You haven’t had a hook-up since I took you out before exams.”

Galahad massages his temples, turning away.

“That was a bad idea, Linet, you know it.”

“This guy looks like he needs a good fuck,” Linet laughs, following him back towards the kitchen, “He’s all broody, didn’t you see?”

“Look after the counter, Linet!” Galahad called back, hiding his pillarbox red flush.

\---

 

He’s alone now, Linet having finished her shift hours ago. What with all the CMR attention, she’s the only one he can keep on for any length of time, and that’s because nothing really frightens Linet.

One of these days he’s going to wake up to a wand in his mouth with a hex shooting out of it. One of these days he’s going to die in a shop fire, the doors and windows enchanted shut, the flames fiercer than water can put out. He only has to wait until he climbs his way higher on the Camelot Magical Resistance's hit list, until the government or the police or whoever have a quiet enough day that he becomes their enemy number one. And it would be so easy to end the threat, the fear. All he would have to do would be to pay their tithes.

He has no intention of paying a single penny.

He wipes down the surfaces of his perfect bakery, the place he always dreamt of. He takes his mop from the cupboard, and he sets to work on the floors. Galahad is occupied, with his thoughts, and he does not notice that so is one of the chairs; with a customer. He nearly mops over the man’s pristine leather shoes before he picks up on the presence.

“Oh,” he says, “Hello. I’m sorry, but we’re closing. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The man looks up at him and his eyes look so empty that Galahad has to stifle a gasp. He does not speak, but his hands drop to his jacket. For a moment Galahad thinks that this is it, this is the moment that he’s going to die. But instead, the man stands and does up his jacket button.

It might be the relief that makes Galahad do it, or it might be the man’s blue-grey eyes. Whatever the reason, he hesitates.

“Actually, I’m trying a new recipe out. Would you like to try it?”

The man shakes his head, holding his hand out, palm flat, fingers upwards.  _ Oh no, I couldn’t possibly _ , Galahad reads.

“Oh, you must. I’ve been dying for an unbiased opinion. Linet has tried them, but she loves everything that I make.”

Galahad takes his hand, and the man seems shocked enough by that contact to follow. Galahad leads him around the back of the counter and out to the kitchen in the back. There is a small tupperware box there, it rests on the work surface. Galahad pops it open and takes out a small biscuit. It’s rectangular in shape, and a sort of beige colour. It looks astoundingly ordinary. But when Galahad tears it in two, tiny bursts of colour show through. He hands one half of the innocuous biscuit to the man.

“Will you try it?” Galahad asks, full of earnestness as he addresses a man who appears to be hovering, caught under a stranger’s attention and not entirely sure how to act. Galahad takes a bite of his half of the biscuit, teeth sinking into the soft bake, and the man echoes his movement. A piece of candied fruit gets caught in Galahad’s molar; he rolls it out with a prod from his tongue, letting it leech sweetness into his mouth, mingling with the ginger from the biscuit.

The man stares at him. He chews slowly. Galahad watches his Adam’s apple drop, and realises that he, too, has been staring. He looks away. He really should be better than dealing with beautiful men by now, but so far he’s suspected this guy of being an assassin, kidnapped him, and stared him down while feeding him baked goods.

“These are good,” the man says finally. Galahad’s gaze shoots up. There isn’t anything obvious on the man’s face to show that he enjoyed the biscuit, but there is something about his eyes that seems a little more present. Galahad counts that as a win.

“Why aren’t they on sale?” he asks, eyeing the tupperware box. His voice is nice, Galahad realises. Low, and a little rough, as if he doesn’t use it very much.

“I wanted more opinions first,” Galahad explains.

“Trust your instinct,” the man tells him.

“Take another,” Galahad says, holding out the tub. The man’s hand snaps out, and Galahad sees that he takes two before slipping them into the breast pocket of that very expensive suit. Galahad thinks of his crumbs sitting there, in the thousand pound fluff. He rather likes the idea.

“I should go,” the man says, and before Galahad has any time to react, before he can so much as as his name, the man is leaving. Galahad hears the bell on the door ring before he can even collect himself to follow.

“Damn,” he says quietly, and he helps himself to another biscuit.

 

\---

 

Mordred sits alone in his spacious apartment. There are white flowers on the table that the housekeeper left. There is a sofa, too - a black leather designer affair that he could be sitting on, but somehow the stools at the kitchen counter are the most comfortable place to be right now. He has his back to the flowers, and to the sofa, and to the floor to ceiling windows that currently show blackness, and the lights of neighbouring tower blocks. He has yet to flick the switch that would turn them opaque.

He takes the biscuits out of his pocket one by one, and he picks a single grey thread from one of them. He lines them up neatly next to each other on the countertop. He looks at them for a moment. And then he proceeds to devour them, first one and then the other.

They don’t taste as good without the presence of a certain blonde baker, but they are still more delicious than anything Mordred has eaten in years. They taste like warmth, like a home he didn’t know to miss, like the words  _ everything will be alright. _

For a moment, he believes it will be. He thinks of that baker, and the curve of his lips. Mordred pictures the pull of his kneaded firm muscles against his short t-shirt sleeves. And then his fingers start to tremble, and the fantasy is gone, and he is left staring down at the one thing that he does not know how to fix.


	2. Chapter 2

The kitchen smells of sweetness and yeast. Galahad kneads over stainless steel countertops, a dusting of flour on the metal. There’s classic rock on the radio; Galahad moves in time to it as he twists dough into perfect plaited shapes and tucks them away in the proving drawers. He takes the pastries from the oven and transfers them to a tray that he carries through to the shopfront. He loves the smell, he loves the peace of his morning routine. He steals one of the pastries himself and munches away at it, leaving a trail of golden brown flakes all the way back to the storeroom where he discards his blue hair net. Beneath it, his hair is tied up in a rough bun at the back of his head.

When he opens the shop, there are a few regulars waiting outside, desperate for their hit of caffeine and sugar. Galahad makes them their coffees in insulated mugs and he bags up treats in brown paper, ringing the purchases up on a till where the chip and pin machine takes a small age to process each transaction. The machine is awful, but Galahad would not dream of replacing it. It came with the shop, when he inherited it.

Galahad has few happy memories of his grandfather. He was a frightening man, who had little skill with children, but he did love this shop. It sold fishing supplies, before he died. Galahad remembers the glee with which his grandfather had first shown him bait - live worms, all wriggling around in a box. Galahad’s grandfather had laughed at the horror on his face, and the way that it had turned to fascination. This place is home. He will not be driven from it.

Home, however, happens to be located in the part of Camelot that is controlled by the Camelot Magical Resistance. Galahad is not entirely certain how his grandfather escaped their wrath but now the shop has changed owners the CMR are after him. They’ll charge him for protection - protection from themselves. Because in Camelot, there are good people and there are bad people and, since the imprisonment of Merlin, all people who use magic are bad people. Or so they say. It’s hard to argue with that view when there are attempted assassinations on the King and little acts of terrorism every week. Galahad remembers what his grandfather used to say about the time before, when Merlin advised the King, when people with and without magic walked the streets fearlessly.

Galahad puts the troubles from his mind. Today, it was only the painted star, purple and blistering against the new whitewash. Today, he will survive. It’s a better fate than is dealt to some.

 

\---

 

Mordred lays in the darkness and he stares down at his hands. His sheets are the finest Egyptian cotton, white with an accent of navy blue embroidery. Mordred picks at the stitches. The alarm clock on his bedside table tells him in glowing red lines that it is five minutes past nine; five minutes past the time that he should have arrived at his desk in his office. He knows that he should call in sick, but he hopes instead that his superiors will assume that he is out on a case, and not bother him. He’s not sure that he can open his mouth to speak to anyone right now. Not without tearing apart.

He’s barely slept all night, and when he did he dreamt. Of the destruction that his fingers could wreak. Of his brothers, his colleagues, his city laid to ruin by him alone.

Now, the light is bleeding through the floor length curtains. He’s still wearing his fitted shirt, just boxers beneath. He rolls over, to ease the discomfort where the buttons dig into his slim form, plastic pressing on bone. On his back now, he raises his hands above his body, stretching them out as far as they will reach. And he lets go, and he screams. That’s all he hears, for a while, until he runs out of breath. And then, his quiet sobbing is interrupted by the hollow thud as all the furniture in his bedroom, which had been hovering a foot above the floor, falls back down.

 

\---

 

Mordred is not entirely certain how he gets there. He has a bag full of groceries he won’t cook on one arm, and a bag of snacks he’ll live off for the next few days in the other hand. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He doesn’t want to see anyone. And yet he still finds himself queuing for a cup of coffee at that same bakery.

There are two of them behind the counter; the baker from before and the girl who seems to work for him. Mordred nears the front of the queue and he grips his shopping tighter. The baker is there, right in front of him, and he looks so much more than Mordred remembers. He’s so beautiful, he’s tall and muscled and he has this messy blonde hair that makes him look like a surfer, but for the flour caught up in it. Mordred’s heart beats a little faster, and he doesn’t like that it does. His Adam’s apple feels hard, like it’s caught in his throat, and he almost cannot open his mouth to order his coffee. His fingers twitch, like they want to release the magic that he’s been fighting to control.

“Ah,” the baker says, “You’ve come back for more.”

And there’s that smile. It’s enough to restart Mordred’s heart.

“Just a coffee,” he says.

“Oh, you can’t just have a coffee,” the baker laughs. “Not here.”

“I-” Mordred stutters.

“Let me pick you something out,” the baker says. He’s smiling, but as Mordred watches him he realises that he looks tired. His green eyes are darkened with lack of sleep. He takes a pair of metal tongs and slips a blueberry muffin onto a plate, hands it to Mordred.

“On the house,” he says, and there’s that blinding smile again. Mordred balls his fists.

“Thanks,” he says. The girl has made his coffee, and he takes it from her, finds himself a table quickly. His hands are shaking. This was a mistake.

He sips his coffee. It’s perfect, and still his hands tremble. He tries to tame them, tearing off a piece of golden brown and purple-stained muffin. He raises it to his mouth, and his teeth sink into warm sweetness. There’s the sharp taste of the berries, and the comforting softness of the cake. Mordred’s eyes fade shut. He’s never comfort eaten before in his life, not before he came to this shop, and so he doesn’t really understand where the feeling comes from. But with the cake there is calm. He’s not going to lose control. He’s not going to hurt anyone.

Not now, anyway.

“Hi.”

Mordred opens his eyes to see the baker sitting across from him. He’s smiling still, though now it’s a slighter expression than Mordred has seen before from him. It’s more personal, somehow.

“Are you alright?” he asks. Mordred nods, because what can he do but not? He can hardly admit his worst fears to a man whose name he doesn’t even know. It doesn’t occur to him to ask.

The baker scrutinises him a little longer. He looks into Mordred’s eyes. Mordred wants to break his gaze, but the baker’s eyes are pretty and green, and he can’t quite look away. He feels as if the baker is seeing too much, is understanding too much, but still he doesn’t leave.

“It’ll be alright, you know,” the baker says. “You’re strong, you’ll make it through.”

His fingers brush over Mordred’s knuckles and as the baker gets up to see to another customer, Mordred cannot find the words. To thank him, to tell him how wonderful he is; to ask him to stay.

 

\---

 

Mordred sleeps and he dreams of that stainless steel kitchen in the back of the bakery. He dreams of magical power like a golden rope of warm sugar, twisted and knotted in the hands of the baker. He imagines those large hands, and the power of his shoulders behind them, taming the magic, keeping it in check.

He showers that morning and he collects his police badge from the drawer to go into work. He sits in his office, behind his shabby old government issue desk on his not quite comfortable chair. He stares at the pinboard across from his desk, and its information about the Camelot Magical Resistance. There aren’t many items pinned to the board.

There, at the top, is Morgan Le Fay. Her identity is known; before the troubles began, she had been the King’s family. But when Nimue had attacked, Morgan had sided with her, and now she runs the CMR. Beneath her, though, the structure and the hierarchy is still unclear to Mordred. What he knows more about is their tactics. There are newspaper articles and crime scene photographs. Mordred feels ill looking at them, thinking about the destruction that they propagate. Broken bridges, burnt down homes, assassinations, fights on the street. Camelot is a war zone, and has been these past few years. And what does that say about Mordred, about what he can do?

He won’t make any breakthroughs now. He’s far too distracted. But, he thinks, he can work on something else. There was a reason he gravitated towards that particular bakery. He’s heard of it before, he knows, but in his panicked state he could not place where. There had to be a reason why Mordred Lothian, head of the Terrorist Task Force of the Camelot Police, would walk even into the edge of CMR territory. He fires up his computer and he open the database, searching for the bakery’s address.

And there it is. About a year ago, when the bakery first opened. The first and only complaint.

It isn’t obvious, at first, what is involved. But Mordred has seen so many cases like it that he knows. The baker, full name Galahad Astolat, made a complaint about graffiti found outside his shop, in the shape of a purple star. And again, every few months, an update. He would wash off the star and it would appear again, every single day. The last update was two weeks ago. The culprit has yet to be caught.

No wonder Mordred’s baker is tired. Galahad - that’s his name, Mordred should use it - is a CMR target. That’s what the star means. Galahad is wonderful. He’s handsome, he’s a god with his baking, and yet he’s living out a death sentence. And Mordred wants to protect him, he wants to put a guard on the bakery but that’s not how the police work. They have to stay out of these tiny conflicts, or else they’d never make any progress.

Mordred sighs and closes the database entry. He looks down at his hands. He looks up at the photograph of Morgan. She’s smirking, there, like she knows the covert officer is photographing her. Like she’s taunting Mordred about all the things that she knows and he doesn’t. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to get his hands on her, now for more reasons than one.

 

\---

 

Galahad checks the time on his phone screen. It glows in the artificial darkness of his bedroom. He sighs, turns the screen off, and flops back down into his pillows. Even with his eyes closed he can sense the narrow crack of light through the gap in the curtains. He won’t sleep, now. He has another two hours until his alarm is due to go off to summon him back downstairs to relieve Linet. But he feels that need in him again, to create, to make something new. Anything to calm the thoughts in his head that chase each other around and around. The quiet man from the bakery, the CMR sign outside his shop, the news reports about the whereabouts of Morgan le Fay. If he can just bring something to life, something wholesome and good, then perhaps it will be alright. Perhaps he’ll find his hope again.

He clatters his way down the back stairs without even stopping to change out of the soft old pride t-shirt he wears as pyjamas. He knows that Linet will have heard and will want him back upstairs but he doesn’t care. He goes into the kitchen and he puts the oven on to heat and he looks through the cupboards for whatever he has to throw together. A sponge, he thinks. Something simple. Something that cannot go wrong no matter how much Linet disturbs him.

He weighs the eggs, he sifts the flour into the mixing bowl, he creams the butter and the sugar. And, with that, Linet arrives on cue.

“No, no, you’re supposed to be asleep.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Galahad insists. “This helps.”

“You’re a zombie as it is,” Linet says, trying to bat Galahad away from the bowls. “You need your sleep.”

“It’s the middle of the day, Linet,” Galahad sighs.

“And besides, you’re worried.” Linet slips between Galahad and the counter. He has no choice but to stop, or manhandle her away.

“There’s nothing I can do about that.”

“Yes, there is,” Linet says, “I know it’s not the right thing to do, but you could pay. Lyonesse’s new  _ boyfriend  _ is CMR, I’m sure if I grovelled in front of her enough she could-”

“But you hate your sister,” Galahad says, “And it really is the wrong thing to do.”   


“You’ve held out for ages,” Linet tells him, “You’ve made your point. Maybe now it’s time to focus on your health.”   


Galahad just shakes his head.

“Let me bake, Lin. It really will help, and this one doesn’t take long.”

Linet groans her displeasure as she steps out of the way and back into the shop.

“I’m only doing this because someone has to watch the counter.”

“Thanks, Linet!”

He takes her a piece of sponge cake through as a reward. It is still warm, but like an impatient child he’s sandwiched it together with jam and buttercream already. The jam is melting into the cake. And as he hands it over, a familiar face makes it to the front of the queue.

And suddenly Galahad is very aware of the sleep in his eyes and the holes along the hem of his t-shirt. But the man in the expensive suit with the dark hair and the sad eyes doesn’t look at his face, or at the hem of his t-shirt. His gaze is fixed on that half peeled off logo across Galahad’s chest.

“Er-” Galahad starts, but the man manages to break the silence with some actual words.

“You’re gay?”

“Yeah,” Galahad replies, poised for the argument he feels certain is coming, “I am, actually, do you-”

Then his breath is stolen, because the man has reached across the counter and balled his hand up in the front of Galahad’s t-shirt, and pulled him forwards over the till. Galahad can feel the buttons on the outer wrist of the man’s suit jacket pressing against his nipple through his thin t-shirt, and strangely that’s all he can feel as the man presses their lips together and kisses him hard. It lasts for just a second, a fraction of a second perhaps, but he’s warm and though he presses painfully against Galahad his lips are soft, and they shudder just a little as he breathes.

He pulls away sharply, letting Galahad’s t-shirt go. It lies still crumpled on Galahad’s chest as he breathes.

“That was inappropriate,” the man says, and he walks - so quickly it’s almost a jog - away from the counter.

Galahad turns slowly to face Linet. There’s this sound issuing from her mouth, not unlike the sound of a kettle letting off steam.

“Well?” she says, when she’s had to take a breath, “What are you waiting for?”

“You think I should-”

“Yes, you idiot!” Linet cries, making shooing motions towards the door. Galahad lifts the hinged section of the counter and he jogs, in still slippered feet, out onto the street. There’s a grey suit, retreating backwards along the street, and so Galahad runs for that target.

“Hey!” he calls, “Hey, wait!”

The man turns. Just his shoulder, and just enough for Galahad to swing into him and to hold him by the upper arms and to kiss. This time is softer, it’s better, and after the initial shock the man leans into him and just brushes Galahad’s lower lip with his tongue. Galahad squeezes his arms, but he doesn’t let him in. He pulls back just enough to talk.

“I don’t even know your name,” Galahad says.

“I know yours,” the man says, a whisper, or barely that. “I read the file on your business.”

Galahad pulls back abruptly, eyes wide.

“You’re-”

“Police,” the man says quickly. “I’m police.”

“Then you shouldn’t be here!” Galahad says urgently.

“I want to be here,” he tells Galahad. Galahad frowns, and so the man speaks quickly.

“I’m Mordred,” he says. “I’ll come back.”

“You’ll come back?”

“Yes, Galahad,” Mordred says, and there’s a little quiver of a smile there. He puts his hand on Galahad’s, on his arm.

“I’ll see you soon,” Galahad says. He can feel the grin starting. He leans in and kisses Mordred once more, on the corner of his lips.

“Goodbye, Mordred,” he says, and he leaves before he can make too much of a fool of himself with his excitement.

 

\---

 

As soon as Galahad has re-entered his shop Mordred starts to run. It isn’t far to his apartment block, not far at all. From his windows he can watch the charms and the explosions. And now he hopes that no one looks in. Because oh, how he could explode.

Except that when he gets back to his place, when he grips the white stone of the kitchen counter and opens himself to let everything go, all that comes out is a laugh. And when he’s done, when his cheeks ache and his eyes are dry from the tears, he still feels that same strength of feeling inside, that same glow.

It’s disturbing, to say the least.


	3. Chapter 3

Linet hurries in through the door just in time for the lunch rush. She scoots over the counter, between a customer’s coffee and a near empty cake stand, in preference to the flip door. She brushes Galahad’s cheek with a kiss on her way to grab her apron. Her bag of heavy textbooks she stows just behind the doorway to the back rooms, and she returns a moment later with her hair in an old nineties-style scrunchie and her hands crossing apron strings around her waist. She grabs the reusable cup waiting on the counter and reads the sharpie-scrawled name on the purple plastic.

“Bedivere?” she yells, “I’ve got a coffee and a- a toastie for Bedivere?” 

She hands the goods over, murmuring a quick apology to Galahad.

“My lecture overran, I’m so sorry Gal, I swear if he does this again I’m going to be having words.”

Galahad catches himself on the counter, just short of burning his palm on the coffee machine, and he positively sags with relief. His best friend is far too competent; when she finally gets the _miss_ in front of her name transmuted to a _doctor_ , he’s not sure how he’ll deal without her.

If he’s still around when that happens, that is.

She moves around the counter like it’s her own personal operating theatre; she knows where each tool is and which tricks she has to run to get the most efficient use out of each of them. She’s on the third customer, and Galahad’s still stuck on the way that she said ‘having words’, as if she meant something as powerful as a spell. Oh, she’s good.

“Galahad!” He blinks, actually focusing on Linet for a start. It comes to his attention that she might have been trying to talk to him.

“Have you actually eaten anything today?” she asks. Galahad thinks back.

“There was breakfast,” he says. His voice comes out hoarse, like he’s sickening for something. Galahad swallows hard, as if that’ll cure it. He can’t be sick. He doesn’t have a backup baker.

“Right,” Linet instructs, “Upstairs for you. Snack, then sleep. Don’t you dare argue.”

Galahad’s still got enough of his wits about him to raise his hand to his temple in a mock salute.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. His toes drag against the floor, even as he climbs the stairs, and he’s not ashamed to admit that he skips on the snack to better make it to the bed. He collapses in sheets that smell of yeast and icing sugar, he sinks into the mattress, and just like that he’s sinking into sleep. There, the nightmares await him.

 

\---

 

“Mordred!”

Mordred looks up with a scowl. It only deepens when he realises that the source of the voice is his brother.

“You don’t have an appointment,” he says. Gareth grins, slipping into Mordred’s office without invitation.

“You can make time for family though, can’t you, brother?”

Mordred gives Gareth the sharpest glare that he can manage, but as ever it only encourages Gareth. He practically bounds over, pulling the chair in front of Mordred’s desk around the side so that they can be closer when they talk. But as he does, he raises his hands. It’s then that Mordred realises that he’s brought more than his own stimulating company.

“I’ve got a lead,” he says. Gareth’s the older of the two, and yet there he is, sitting on a backwards chair, a manila folder dangling from his fingers like a prize, eager eyes on Mordred like a puppy waiting for a reward from his owner. Despite himself, Mordred gives the only brother he almost likes a hint of an approving smile.

“What is it?” he asks, reaching for the folder. Gareth snatches it away before Mordred can take it.

“Give me a marker,” he says. Mordred, rolling his eyes, does so.

“I didn’t have time to redact it,” Gareth says, “I came right over. And you don’t have the clearance.” Gareth uncaps the marker with his teeth and runs the marker over a few lines of text, using the back of the chair as a desk. Mordred cannot help but huff.

They’re brothers, but they could not be less alike. They don’t even look that similar, Gareth broad and muscled where Mordred is slight. Gareth is shorter, his hair a good few shades lighter, his eyes an amber colour, not a sea-blue. He looks like the rest of the Lothian brothers, unlike Mordred. Their personalities could hardly differ more, either. Where Mordred is quiet, scheming, Gareth is overflowing with enthusiasm, desperate to be liked. Really, they should have found opposite careers. Mordred seems the more suited to spying, Gareth to good-doing.

Gareth slides the first page onto Mordred’s desk. The watermark of Camelot Domestic Intelligence Agency mars the text, as does Gareth’s hastily scrawled censorship.

“The scientists found something,” Gareth says, breaking Mordred’s concentration. “They’ve been working on magical detection machines, and they turned them on last week, just in time to sense a kind of a blip. They haven’t got the damned things properly calibrated yet so they can’t locate the spike, but they did come to a few conclusions.”

He hands the second page to Mordred. A lot of what he’s saying out loud appears to be blacked out. Mordred glances up at his brother, to see his eyes full of something intense.

“It’s untrained,” he says, “It doesn’t bear the signature of any CMR spell we know. So that means-”

“It’s a witch,” Mordred says. He keeps his voice unmodulated, flat. He makes sure to hold his brother’s eye. “It’s a witch that the CMR hasn’t got to yet.”

“Yes!” Gareth exclaims, “And they don’t have the tech that we have, they’ll be looking, but we could get to the witch first. We have to get to the witch first, take it down.”

Mordred swallows hard.

“I don’t have the tech that you have at the CDIA. What do you need me for?”

Gareth grins.

“You’re watching some of the operatives, right?” Mordred nods. Precious few, but enough that Mordred does not feel a complete disaster.

“There’s been no change to their usual behaviour, right?” Gareth asks. Mordred shakes his head.

“Then I need you to make one,” he says. “I need you to keep them busy. Keep them distracted. Make sure that they’re too busy to find the witch. Can I count on you?”

Mordred nods.

“Yeah,” he says, voice shaking. “Yeah, you can.”

Gareth reaches forward, and he ruffles his brother’s hair, as if he’s more than a single year older than Mordred.

“Great,” he says, that enthusiasm bubbling right through him. Mordred feels ill. As his brother leaves, he looks down at his shaking hands.

 

\---

 

The first clue that Galahad has that something is wrong is Linet’s voice. It’s high and strained and _worried_. He’s not sure that he’s ever heard Linet worried before.

“Galahad!” she calls, “Galahad, I need you down here! Now!”

His heart shocks itself into overdrive, pumping fast enough that it hurts. It’s adrenaline alone that carries him downstairs, still with only his shorts on his lower half. It’s two steps before the end of the staircase that he realises that he’s going to die without trousers. His mother is going to really laugh at him at the funeral.

“Can I help you?” he says brightly to the two men at the counter who Linet seems to be fending off with only the help of a pair of tongs and a milk frothing tool.

“We’re from the police,” one of them grunts. It sets Galahad closer to the edge than if they’d just come straight out with wands.

“Who sent you, then?” Galahad asks.

“Mordred Lothian,” the same one says. Galahad’s heart still does not calm.

“I’m going to have to speak to him before I believe you,” he says slowly. “He didn’t mention anything about sending in the police. Why don’t you two come through to the back? There’s no need to involve these customers in whatever’s happening here.”

“We don’t need to-” one of them starts. Linet is staring at Galahad with big, wide eyes.

“No, you’re right,” Linet says, “You really don’t.”

“It’s fine, Lin,” Galahad argues, “Just, if I don’t come back, you should-”

The other man has his hand in his inside pocket, and Galahad can barely speak, he’s so afraid. He positions himself so that he can lean hard on the counter, and he takes a deep breath of pastry-filled air.

“-tell my mum that I-”

The guy brings out something far too flat and broad to be a wand. He flips it over in his hand - a phone, Galahad realises - and dials a number.

“Yeah, can you put me through to the Super? We gave the kid a bit of a shock.”

“Oh,” Galahad finishes, and he can feel all the blood that was trapped somewhere around his heart rush up to his cheeks, certain that someone from the CMR wouldn’t feel the need to follow through with the charade, “That’s not necessary, I-”

“Galahad?”

The voice comes through on speaker, and though he’s only ever heard Mordred say his name once before he recognises the sound from the way his skin tingles, like he’s walked through magical residue.

“Hi,” he just about chokes out.

“It’s my fault, I should have called ahead,” Mordred says. His voice is short and crisp and Galahad leans over the counter to hear it better. “This is Sergeant Bors and Constable Ban, I’ve re-assigned them to look into your case.”

“That really wasn’t necessary,” Galahad says, currently at the level of mortification where he almost wishes the police officers were agents sent to kill him, then at least it would end. “I’m sure my little shop isn’t a priority.”

“You are-” Mordred clears his throat, “Every member of the public is a priority, Mr Astolat. And besides, we’ve had a recent funding raise, we’re using that to look into more cases.”

“Well, thank you, then,” Galahad tells him.

“You’re alright?”

“Yes,” Galahad assures him, “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I-” Mordred starts, but he does not finish that sentence. “Goodbye, Mr Astolat.”

The phone cuts off then, leaving Galahad in a strangely silent bakery, each and every customer pretending not to look at him. Although he is still hidden behind the counter, Galahad is so very aware that he is still not wearing any trousers.

“So I’m going to go and get dressed,” he announces, hoping that only the police officers can hear him. “In the meantime, Linet can get you anything, on the house.”

“Great idea, Mr Astolat,” one of the officers deadpans. Screwing up his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch his own embarrassment, Galahad runs upstairs.

A few miles away, up in a small office with an uncomfortable chair, Mordred holds his black plastic phone handset to his ear and listens to the flat tone. His other hand hovers over the dial pad, and he watches his fingers shudder and shake.

“You’re my priority,” he whispers, and as he does he hears the note from the phone rise and rise, like a kettle releasing steam.

 

\---

 

Mordred stands between the trees, his steps cracking over old leaves. He can see the glint of sunlight from his car in the lay-by, just, and just because he knows it is there. He’s hidden enough, he thinks. Any more and, perhaps, people would have cause to suspect.

He leans back against the trunk of a tree and he lets the magic pour out, away from the road. He watches, surprised, as it carves tracks through the leaves, sending whirls of brittle brown debris into the air. Where it hits each tree, it climbs up and - Mordred laughs to see this - brightly coloured fungi burst from the tree-trunks like fairy staircases.

Mordred pours his magic into the ground until he can feel it vibrating in his veins no longer. Then, he walks back to his car, gets in, and drives back to the city.


	4. Chapter 4

“Is that a kid?” Bors asks. Ban gestures hurriedly for him to shut up. It’s three in the morning, and they, along with the girl on the street opposite with the spray can, are the only things emanating any kind of sound in the area. Fortunately, his dismay is covered by the susurrus of paint emanating from the hole of the can. The pea clanks against the metal can; it seems as loud as a gunshot on that narrow street.

It’s so dark, the police officers cannot see the shape as it forms, but they can pick out the line of the girl’s arm in the sickly street-lamp light. She moves slowly, as if possessed, and for a long moment Ban suspects that she might be. Her hand sweeps up from the ground, at an angle, then down, still travelling to the side. Across, back the way she came, and higher; then another stroke horizontally. Finally, she returns to the first point. And then she drops the spray can into her front hoodie pocket, and walks away. 

Bors counts it out. Twenty seconds, before he and Ban rise and walk, quietly, behind her.

 

\---

 

The phone call wakes Mordred, though he had not intended to sleep at all that night. His suit shirt is crumpled, his spine protesting from where he’s fallen asleep, head sagging from his shoulders. Still, he snatches at the phone. Taking a pen from his desk, he notes down the address as told to him, and then hangs up the receiver. He needs to act quickly, in case they’ve been seen. There’s someone else to wake, there’s a warrant to gain. 

He rubs at the back of his neck as he calls the judge, and then he opens up his email to wait for the warrant to be issued. There’s a bullet-proof jacket in his cupboard, and trainers to replace his less than sensible shoes. Once he’s changed, the full warrant has arrived - he gives it a cursory check before taking the stairs two at a time, to ready the Special Response Unit he has on standby. 

Next is a rush of iron-lined helmets and shields, before they pile into the back of the van. They have to be fast. The safe house Ban and Bors have found is so far into CMR territory that they have no chance of being surreptitious - they’ll be seen, and the occupants of the safe house will have warning. Their only chance is if that notice is not long enough. 

The van comes to a halt and Mordred leads the exodus, two helmets in hand for Ban and Bors. 

“Well?” he asks. 

“Two exits, one at the front and one out the back. There’s also a window above the extension they could use to get to next door.” 

“We’ll have to get up there internally,” Ban explains. “We recommend two teams, one through each door.”

Mordred nods his approval. Before him is a seemingly normal end of terrace building, but he knows that there’s more to it. As a CMR safehouse, there has to be. There are several extensions, and a Velux window in the roof speaking to accommodation there. The house could hold at least seven or eight operatives comfortably. 

“Two teams,” Mordred announces to the gathered team, “Each take an iron ram. There’s likely to be wards on the doors, so watch yourselves over the threshold. Keep your guns holstered unless absolutely necessary.” 

Mordred takes the lead of the team through the front door, holding while the others break down the fence and ready themselves at the back. And then, using radios to signal each other, Mordred coordinates the assault. Three rams is all it takes before the front door collapses in on itself; deceptively easy. The men throw the battering ram through the doorway, usually enough to dispel any lingering curses, but as they’re about to enter Mordred catches a flash at the corner of the doorframe. It seems in shape like a spider’s web, but made of pure silver light, and though Mordred can only see a corner he suspects it covers the entire opening. He rushes forward and grabs the arm of the officer attempting to enter. 

“Me first,” he insists. Mordred pushes past. He takes a deep breath - possibly his last, he thinks - and he steps through. 

Immediately, a killing cold surrounds him, wrapping around him like a net. It’s like falling into the sea - the cold is numbing, to the degree that he cannot breathe, he cannot move, he cannot fight. His chest seems to move in spasms, a halting attempt to inflate his lungs, a shudder, a seizure. 

It’s strangely quiet within the house. From a long way away, he thinks that he should expect sounds. The Special Response team behind him, the other with Ban and Bors from the other side of the house. The CMR operatives waiting for them, armed, within. But there’s nothing. Only echoes of things that he cannot truly be hearing. A woman’s voice, whispering a spell. A man’s, raised in anger. The woman, again, calling to him. 

“Mordred.” He hears the digital distortion of the phone as it was a mere day before. He hears the fear in the baker’s voice, an echo of his own, and while he had thought he could die before it is only now that the consequences appear to him. There’s more to life now, after three meetings, after one kiss, than the monotony of the past. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t know what to do. 

“You’re strong, you’ll make it through.” 

Mordred holds those remembered words. And there’s a taste in his mouth, of ginger and sugar. 

He is strong. He has a strength that even he fears to tap. And so, he can escape. They’ll sense the magic, Gareth and his scientists, but even being caught is better than dying. 

He pushes the power into his fingers, and with tight grip he lifts strands of the magic away from his skin. Again and again, he snaps the spell, until he can feel warmth even in the cool night air, and he can take a full breath that burns at his lungs and smells of ozone. Mordred shakes like a cat, until he’s free of the magic, and then he turns to the team before him. 

“Clear,” he says. He disobeys his own orders, lifting his gun from its holster at his hip, abandoning his iron shield for its textured grip. The iron had not provided any protection; the trigger gives him reassurance of a kind. 

There is a young girl in what would once have been the living room. Her eyes are wide and white, reflecting the light from the torches on their helmets. If she is a witch, she has precious little magic. 

“You’re under arrest,” Mordred says, “For association with an illegal terrorist organisation.” 

He listens as the officer behind him finishes reciting the girl’s rights. And he listens out for something more. 

There’s something powerful in this house. Mordred can feel it in his blood. Logic reinforces instinct - why else would they use that strength of ward on the door. Something is being protected. And so Mordred moves through the rooms, each in turn. He sees a boy with sparks on his skin who the officers surround with shields and arrest. He sees a young man, with hair as bright at Galahad’s, curled up on the floor in fear, flashing in and out of visibility. In the attic, he sees a woman tied to a bed, her eyes restless in sleep, tossing and turning as far as her bonds will allow her. 

He draws close to her. He’s in the room before any of his officers. He can feel some sort of power coming from the woman. He knows that he he needs to make some sense of it before his officers near, in case they could be hurt, in case this woman is what’s being protected. 

She seems lost in whatever dreams hold her. Mordred can hear the shouts of the officers downstairs, arresting other operatives, but he hears them as if from a great distance, or underwater. He reaches out with care for the straps that hold the woman like a lunatic to the bed. 

All at once she sucks in a great breath. She hinges at the waist, rising to sit, and her eyes burst open. Mordred tries to stagger back, but she has her hand around his wrist. He does not think to use his gun. 

“I knew it was you,” the woman says, though it does not sound like her voice. The words sound as much as if they emanate from a human as the drone of a power saw does. 

“You will come to me,” the woman calls, “You will come, and we will be together once more.” 

Now, Mordred thinks of the gun in his other hand, but he does not fire. He flicks the safety on, and he takes it like a club, lashing out at the woman’s arm. She screams, the iron present in the steel burning at her magic. Her strong fingers give up his wrist, and she falls back to the bed, back to her twitching. 

Unnerved, Mordred steps back out into the corridor. 

“I need officers here,” he cries. There’s the thud of footsteps, and he is no longer alone. He no longer has to think about what the woman said. About being _together once more_.

 

\---

 

Galahad still has speckles of paint on over the hairs on his growing beard by the afternoon. Linet is away, and business is booming - he’s barely had a chance to eat and drink himself, let alone clean up. Of course, that’s when Mordred walks in, looking more than a little different. Gone is the well kept suit, gone too the vacant eyes. There’s a victory in his gaze, in the way he holds himself. There’s dust in his messed hair, and his chest looks broader encompassed with a bullet-proof, iron-lined vest. He walks up to the counter with purpose, and Galahad wants to look away, wants to scrub the worst of the paint off his face but he can’t seem to look away. Mordred walks towards him with a growing smile. It feels to Galahad like a real life movie, like there should be violins and doves and confetti. 

“Hi,” is all he can say.

Mordred’s eyes seem to flash at that. There’s excitement and expectation and something untameable. 

“I need to give you the number for my private line,” Mordred says, and Galahad is about to let himself smile as wide as a chick flick heroine when he continues, “We ran an operation this morning that led to the arrest of six CMR operatives. I’ve arranged for a police watch on the building but there’s a low risk that the CMR traces our actions back to this location. You should have a point of contact.” 

Galahad cannot bring himself to be afraid. That will come later. 

“Surely I’d be safer if you stayed here,” he blurts, before he realises what a poor line it truly is, dropping his gaze to the counter. Mordred reaches for him, holding his jaw in a grip that is almost too strong, forcing him to look up. 

“Not now,” he says, sliding a business card onto the counter, “But you have my number.” 

There’s a moment here, when they hold each other’s gaze for a moment too long, just long enough for some kind of heat to build. It’s only a breath too long, but Galahad cannot hold the tension - he careens forward, hands rising to Mordred’s shoulders, and he presses a kiss to his lips. Something travels between them, sharp as static. For just a second, Mordred sways closer, but then he pulls back, puts enough distance between himself and the counter that Galahad can no longer reach him. He’s not proud of the disappointed hum that issues from his lips at that. 

“I have to leave,” Mordred says. Galahad happens to glance over his shoulder, to see that Mordred is holding up a line. Galahad is far from ready for him to leave. After that kiss, he isn’t certain he’ll manage to make his fingers work the coffee machine. But then Mordred is turning away, and there isn’t a thing that Galahad can think of to make him stay.

 

\---

 

“We should probably go on a date.” Mordred had been hoping that the identity of the unknown caller would be Galahad, but now he regrets that wish. That word - _date_ \- sounds of a sudden too serious for what Mordred can give. After all, what is he but a fraud? He spends his days chasing his own tail, and he’s fast running out of time. And Galahad, well, a baker hardly needs dragging into this mess of Mordred’s making. 

Even disregarding his current predicament, Mordred does not know what to say. A _date_ \- Mordred thinks of flowers and candles, of something he has never had. Never wanted, either. Bruised knees in the locker room showers, or drunken shoves against rough walls - that’s what he knows. He understands give and take, and take, but he doesn’t- he can’t- 

“Mordred? Are you there?” 

Mordred’s words die in the back of his throat. He turns the strangled sound it makes into a cough. 

“Yes, Galahad,” he says, and then, because he likes the way it feels on his tongue, he says it again; “Galahad.” 

“Are you alright?” 

“Fine,” Mordred barks. And yet, he isn’t. Nothing is right. The power in his blood, the race of his pulse, the way Galahad makes him _shiver._  

“Would you like to get dinner with me?” Galahad asks. His voice sounds so hopeful - Mordred wants to shoot it down, put it out of its misery, but he longs to save it too. Dinner. That’s a better word. He has dinner with Gareth, sometimes, or with parents. He knows what to do. 

“Yes,” he says, and then boldly, “Friday at six? I’ll pick you up about five-thirty.” 

“I’d like that,” Galahad says, and even as the sound fades in Mordred’s ears he’s reaching for the button to end the call. The silence is a blanket, a numbing. Mordred’s heart calms; he opens a new browser tab on the computer in front of him and finds the number to the restaurant he visits with his family. He calls, he makes a reservation, and he returns to work.


	5. Chapter 5

Galahad steps out of the shower and sniffs at his bath towel as he grabs it. He can’t remember the last time it was washed. He’s definitely due a day of chores, but he hasn’t had a day off, hasn’t slept properly, for months. Leaving wet footprints on the tiles, then the carpet, Galahad throws the towel into the washing machine in his kitchenette, and takes another from his wardrobe. He glances over at his alarm clock and throws the towel around his waist, rifling through the wardrobe for the right shirt, the right trousers. It’s five fifteen already. He doesn’t have long until Mordred arrives.

And he doesn’t even know what to wear. Mordred did not specify a restaurant and Galahad, for all his interest in Mordred, for all his want, does not know him well enough to foretell. He dries, and he tries on a few combinations, but when he looks in the mirror everything falls short of that first suit he saw Mordred in; sophisticated, elegant, gorgeous. He strips off, leaving the clothes folded roughly on his bed. Wearing his underwear, he regards himself in the mirror.

He’s a little softer around the waist than his university days, abs disappearing under the remains of sugar and butter. His arms have kept their tone, worked for hours each day kneading. Galahad quite likes the look, but he wonders, perhaps Mordred will not.

He opts for a narrow pair of black trousers and an almost-white, slightly green shirt. He brushes his hair and ties the top half of it back. Checking the time again, he doesn’t have time to shave. He tries a smile in the mirror. He rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. He tries again.

As he does, the doorbell rings. Galahad grabs at his wallet, his phone, toes on black shoes not worn since graduation, and runs downstairs.

Mordred is waiting there, feet on the kerb, leaning back against a car more expensive than Galahad’s building. And he looks, well, Galahad has to support himself on the door as he locks it to stop his knees quaking.

“Hi,” he calls to Mordred. Mordred unfolds his arms.

“You-” he says, but his words fall short. Galahad cannot help but smile.

“Yeah,” he says, “You too.” His keys drop into his pocket and he steps forward. Mordred mirrors the movement, strings pulling tight between them. Another step, a stride, and Galahad can take Mordred’s hands in his own and kiss him. Mordred lets out a sharp breath, one shocking enough to break the hold he has over Galahad. He pulls back, biting the inside of his lip to stop himself from dragging Mordred inside and upstairs.

“We’ll never leave like this,” he says. Mordred nods sharply. He walks around the car and opens the passenger seat for Galahad, movements clipped. Galahad wants to kiss him again, but he doesn’t, settling for smiling up at Mordred as he sits. Mordred walks around the car and gets in himself. He fires up the engine, touching the steering wheel with something like pleasure.

“Where are you taking me?” Galahad asks.

“Into the city,” Mordred says, “A restaurant I know.”

“Is it your favourite?” Galahad asks. A little furrow appears between Mordred’s eyebrows. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls out of his parking space, driving away into the city.

They park in a hotel car park, and Mordred leads Galahad through. He’s wearing another tailored suit and there’s a space at the back of his jacket, where it flattens over the small of his back, that Galahad cannot help but rest his hand over as they walk.

And then they emerge into the restaurant, and Galahad’s hand drops. It is pristine. The fittings are red, or leather, or brass. The customers are suited, or clad in shimmering veils of cocktail dresses. Galahad feels achingly underdressed, out of place. He takes Mordred’s hand. Mordred lets him.

“Mordred Lothian,” he tells the maitre d’, “I have a table booked for two.”

“Right this way, Mr Lothian,” the waiter says. He looks Galahad over, and he seems to sneer as he does. Galahad shivers.

They have a candle at the table, but it seems the only life there. Galahad opens a crisp cream-coloured menu while Mordred orders a bottle of wine. The menu has no prices listed. His breath kicks shallower.

“What do you recommend?” he asks Mordred, once the waiter has left. The menu is an inventory of expensive ingredients; lobster, oysters, steak.

“I’m having the steak,” Mordred says, without even looking at the menu. “The fish is good, too.”

Galahad scans the list. The only fish is a swordfish fillet. It is hardly what he is used to, but he chooses it anyway. He’s certain that it will be delicious, if he is certain of nothing else.

“Do you come here often?” Galahad asks. Mordred nods. The waiter comes over with the wine, pours a little for Mordred to try. He sips, gestures; the man pours some for them both. Mordred orders and the waiter leaves.

“With my family,” Mordred says.

“And who’s that?”

“Four older brothers, mother and father,” Mordred lists emotionlessly. “Tell me about your family.”

Galahad tries out a smile.

“Mine is a bit complicated. I don’t have any siblings, but I have my Mum and Dad. They separated before I was born, so I grew up with Mum, mostly. And there was my grandfather, who left me the shop. He looked after me a lot, growing up.”

Mordred takes a sip of his wine. He seems to make no effort to speak, so Galahad continues.

“Mum’s a researcher, she’s working out in the science parks in Avalon. Now I’ve moved into the city, I don’t see her as much as I should. Dad comes into the shop sometimes. He’s actually one of the King’s personal guard.

“He’s a knight?” Mordred prompts. He watches Galahad intently, but otherwise his face betrays no emotion.

“He used to be a soldier, but he left the army a few years ago. Now, yeah, he’s a knight. I think he guards the Queen a lot, he speaks about her the most.”

Mordred nods and looks away, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

“And you see him often?”

“I used to,” Galahad sighs, “But with his hours, and the bakery, it’s not been as much as I’d like.”

The conversation falls quiet, then. Galahad gulps at his wine. When he looks back to Mordred, he’s playing with the edge of the menu. His body is like a doll’s, perfectly upright and staring ahead. Eventually, he seems to remember that Galahad exists.

“Your grandfather left you the bakery? Tell me more about that.”

“Well,” Galahad starts, glad for the distraction, “I never thought I’d be a baker. I’m actually a physicist - I have a masters in theoretical physics - and when I left I was looking at PhDs. I thought for a while that I wanted to be the first person to truly understand magic. Is it a force, or maybe the ripples of something from another dimension?” Mordred turns in his seat when he talks, and he’s looking at Galahad’s eyes, looking at his mouth. “Anyway, Grandfather died and I thought that all the property would go to Mum, but he put my name in the will. It was a fishing supplies shop, when it came to me. I couldn’t run that - he’d tried so hard to get me to like fishing but I didn’t, I couldn’t. And I didn’t like the idea of it leaving the family. I’d always been a good cook, so-”

Galahad breaks off, amused by Mordred’s scoffing at the word ‘good’. There’s a smile, but in a moment it’s faded. He’s too loud, Galahad thinks, and too obviously alien. People at other tables are pointedly not looking at him, which of course means that they are, when they think he can’t see. And Mordred is still so tense, Galahad feels convinced that it is his fault. He picks up his wine glass and drains half of it.

“I suppose I don’t fit in with the usual clientele here,” he says, his accompanying laugh falling short as he gestures towards one of the swiftly rotating observational heads.

“What?” Mordred starts, and he looks around them, and then to Galahad.

“You’re perfectly-” he begins to say, and then changes, “You’re uncomfortable, you want to leave.”

“No,” Galahad says, “I want to be with you, I-”

“I don’t know why I brought you here,” Mordred interrupts, “It’s hideous. We come here every week, my family and I, for our weekly gatherings.”

Galahad eyes Mordred, to see whether he means it, and he truly does seem to. Galahad wants to ask more, about Mordred’s family, about why it is that he hates this place so, but it does not seem the time, not with how he can see the pulse in Mordred’s throat. And it is that moment that the waiter arrives.

“Would you like to order, sirs?”

Galahad glances to Mordred before speaking.

“Actually, could we just pay for this? We made a bit of a mistake, we need to leave.”

“Of course, sir,” the waiters says, with a little knowing smile. Mordred scowls back.

“Do hurry with the bill,” Mordred says coldly. Galahad takes his hand in the hopes that it will soften him.

“Where do you want to go instead?” he asks, “What do you want to do?”

Mordred looks at him and shrugs, though it is not an uncaring motion.

“I know a few places,” Galahad says with a smile. He takes his phone out of his pocket to check where they are. “We can even walk. Do you like Italian?”

Mordred nods. Galahad gives him an encouraging smile.

“Then I promise, you’ll love this place.”

When the waiter returns, Mordred pays for the wine with his card, and as soon as he’s slipping the card back into his wallet, Galahad is picking up the wine bottle, finishing his glass, and preparing to leave.

“Come on,” he says excitedly, “They’ll be busy at this time of night.”

He takes Mordred’s hand, because their fingers feel right like that, linked together, and he leads Mordred down the street sipping wine straight from the bottle. He laughs at Mordred’s raised eyebrow.

“It would be a waste to leave it,” he says, and he offers the bottle to Mordred, tipping it up at his lips to drink.

Galahad hasn’t drunk that much, so far, but he feels giddy in the night air. He hasn’t felt this free, this fun, since before he left university. He watches Mordred’s lips seal over the top of the bottle, and feels his heart skip with want, but he laughs too when he slips and tips the bottle too far, and white wine runs down Mordred’s chin. Galahad lets go of his hand, freeing his fingers to wipe at the mess, lift the wine from Mordred’s lips, and suck it from the pad of his own thumb. Mordred had been smiling, but the expression drops at that, and then they’re kissing, deeper and stronger than they ever have before. And suddenly Galahad is wishing that they weren’t out in the city any more, that they were somewhere with privacy, and a bed-

But they aren’t, so Galahad breaks away, catching Mordred’s sigh as he does.

“Dinner,” he says, his voice firm to convince himself.

He takes Mordred around a corner and down a little alley, then through a relatively nondescript door and down a flight of stairs. Behind him, Mordred is frowning - Galahad glances up to reassure him.

“Just wait,” he says, and almost as soon as he does they reach the base of the stairs and turn, finding themselves in a light-filled room. It’s a small room, with a few tables and chairs, all empty. But looking to the light source, ahead of them stand an open set of french doors, which lead out ot a paradise of a garden beyond. Excitedly, Galahad rushes ahead - he’s spotted that his favourite seat, a swing chair with a table, is free. Sitting down, he turns to watch Mordred, who still stands gaping in the doorway.

The garden leads all the way to the base of the ancient city walls, white stone walls which now ring the administrative centre of Camelot, the mercantile city spreading far beyond their extent. There are tables and chairs everywhere, an eclectic mix of white painted garden furniture that is nearly subsumed by plants. The night is growing dark, and with the dusk the garden is lit by candles, on the tables and in lanterns. But what strikes Mordred the most is the smell, of roses and clematis and grass.

A waitress nearly knocks into him, gushing apologies, and so he scans the place for where Galahad has got to. Galahad waves as Mordred’s eyes light on him, half hidden in leaves on a long swing seat. He pats the seat next to him, and Mordred walks his way over.

“Do you like it?” Galahad asks eagerly. Mordred has to cough to collect himself.

“I didn’t know this was here.”

“They like to keep it a little bit secret,” Galahad admits. His hands drop to Mordred’s knees as he sits, so close to him on the same seat. Mordred can’t stop looking at those hands, feeling their warmth on his kneecaps, feeling so close to him. Oh, he feels as if he could burst, just from touching Galahad, remembering the press of his lips, the taste of his mouth.

Instead, Mordred reaches for the slip of paper on their table which seems to be their menu.

“They don’t usually have much of a selection,” Galahad admits, “I hope that’s alright, They’ve got a tiny kitchen.”

It suits Mordred fine, the lack of choice making the decision easier. He opts quickly for lasagne, before passing the menu over to Galahad.

“What are you having?” Galahad asks, as he takes significantly longer to mull over the dishes.

“The lasagne,” Mordred tells him. He takes off his jacket. It feels a little incongruous in the softness of the garden.

“I might get the pizza,” Galahad muses, “But I probably eat more than enough bread as it is. Perhaps the spaghetti, then.”

He still has one hand on Mordred’s knee. Mordred aches where Galahad strokes at his inseam, and part of him wants to leave, wants to bundle Galahad in his arms and take him home, where he could possess him, but that part is largely quiet, drowned in contentment.

They order, and they talk. Mordred asks questions, about the bakery, about Galahad’s family, about his childhood. He listens to the answers, and he watches the way that Galahad’s face animates when he talks.

Galahad steals a kiss when Mordred has finished eating and his lips are stained with red ragu, in between trying to wipe it away for him. And though the kiss itself is chaste, it allows that feeling of need to bubble to the surface again. Mordred does not suggest dessert, and when Galahad looks into his eyes with deep, blown pupils in jade green irises, he knows that they want the same thing.

But for a moment, they are both still. The rest of the garden need not exist for them. Mordred drinks in the sight of Galahad in the flickering candlelight, and the way the smell of his aftershave mixes with the scent of the plants. Reaching above them, he catches a single clematis bloom and he plucks it from the stem, tucking it behind Galahad’s ear. And then Galahad smiles, and the need takes hold again.

Mordred catches the attention of a waitress, the same one who almost tripped over him when they first arrived, and asks for the bill. After a short argument about who should pay, which Mordred wins easily when he kisses Galahad and slips the waitress his card, they’re out on the street and it’s not fast enough, Mordred cannot wait until they’re home. He takes hold of Galahad’s shoulders, firm and unyielding as they are, and pushes him up against the alley wall.

“I can’t drive,” he says, between kisses, “I’m above the limit.”

“We could walk,” Galahad suggests, although the weakness to his voice suggests that he doesn’t have much conviction towards that plan. He licks into Mordred’s mouth and groans, derailing the conversation until they have to break for air.

“My place is close,” Mordred admits, “Walking’s faster than calling a taxi around here. Or there’s the hotel.”

Galahad shakes his head firmly, at last breaking the kiss.

“I’m not sleeping with you for the first time in a hotel room. Or an alley, for that matter.”

Reluctantly, Mordred steps away.

“It really isn’t far,” he assures Galahad. Galahad seizes his hand, as if he thinks he’ll get lost, and they begin to walk.

Not far is perhaps a relative term, Mordred realises as they round the fifteen minute mark of walking. They are almost there, but they keep getting distracted; bumping shoulders, getting caught in each other’s gaze. It is one of these moments that Mordred notices Galahad bite his lip, suppressing what appears to be a shiver. Mordred stops still to observe him. He can see Galahad’s nipples peaked through his pale shirt, though he seems muscled enough that he should not be chilled.

“Are you cold?” he asks. Galahad nods reluctantly.

“I’m fine, really-” he says, but before he can finish, Mordred takes the jacket that he was holding and swings it over Galahad’s shoulders. It looks strange, Mordred thinks; on a girl the jacket would swamp her, but with Galahad’s broad shoulders it barely stays on. Galahad smiles anyway.

“We’re almost there,” Mordred promises.

His building, when they reach it, is a recently built structure of stone and glass, controlled by numerical access panels on each door. There’s a code to get into the lobby, where Mordred nods to the after hours security guard, and a code to get into the lift, where Mordred pushes Galahad against the mirrored wall and kisses him soundly. As he does, there’s a key to access Mordred’s penthouse floor; Mordred turns it in the lock and the lift begins to move, with still enough time to ravage Galahad thoroughly.

They cling to each other as they kiss, so deep, so wanting, that they barely notice when the lift doors slide open behind Mordred. He steps back, gathering himself before entering the apartment, and Galahad has his first glimpses of the place. His impression is of white furniture, clean lines, and glass, before he catches sight of Mordred’s lips; red where they’ve rubbed against his stubbled beard. Galahad surges forward, catching Mordred by the hips, and kisses him once more, sucking on his lower lip, biting just a little at it.

“Bedroom,” he finally gasps, and Mordred does not need to be told more than once. He backs towards a closed door, letting Galahad kiss him still. When their tongues slide together Galahad moans, distracted enough that Mordred can open the door, move him through it, and push him down onto the bed.

Once on the bed, Mordred changes. There’s a darkness in his eyes, like obsidian that just glints in the light. He tugs at Galahad’s shirt buttons and as soon as they’re exposed, he bites down on Galahad’s nippes. Galahad’s back arches in pleasure and he cries out, his crotch rubbing along Mordred’s hip. Mordred’s hands come to clamp down on his waist, to press him back to the bed, but in a second he changes his mind and rolls Galahad onto his side, legs bracketed by Mordred’s knees. With Galahad’s wrists caught in his shirt, Mordred twists at the fabric to form an impromptu knot, holding Galahad’s arms behind his back. And somewhere, here, Galahad has lost the flower that was tucked into his hair.

“Please,” Galahad begs, but Mordred is unforgiving. He scratches his nails down the middle of Galahad’s chest, leaving red welts, and Galahad gasps. His cock is uncomfortable now, trapped in his boxers and his too tight trousers. He shifts to try to find some relief, but Mordred brings a slap down hard on his arse.

“Oh, fuck,” Galahad moans, and he catches a pleased look on Mordred’s face before he raises one finger to Galahad’s lips, in a motion to be quiet. Returning his mouth to Galahad’s nipple, Mordred plays there a little longer, licking in circles, then flicking across the tight nub, and finally, without warning, biting down hard again.

“Ah!” Galahad cries, wordless in deference to Mordred’s request. But still he pulls back.

“You can’t stay quiet, then,” Mordred says. Galahad bites his lip, but he knows it’s too little too late. Looking up at Mordred, he knows for certain he’ll be glad of whatever form of punishment comes his way. But instead of hit him or touch him, Mordred steps off the bed. Galahad watches his back as Mordred undoes his trousers, then pushes both them and his underwear down his legs.

When he turns again, his erection is all the Galahad can look at. It’s still half veiled by Mordred’s shirt, but there’s a small wet patch in the fabric where the precome has clearly soaked into the shirt already, and the white cotton tents around Mordred’s length, giving Galahad some idea as to size. And oh, he likes what he sees.

Mordred climbs back onto the bed, and Galahad is so caught up looking for the sight of his dick that he doesn’t realise what Mordred is doing when he places a pillow under Galahad’s head and rolls him onto his back, arms trapped between his body and the mattress. And then Mordred is pulling his shirt out of the way, and Galahad sees his cock so close, pink and thick and perhaps longer than anything Galahad has taken before. And Galahad has just a second to realise what Mordred is doing before his thumb is on Galahad’s chin, opening his mouth, and his cock is sliding inside. Mordred holds onto the headboard and presses himself, slow, all the way to the root inside of Galahad.

Galahad can taste salt, he feels full, he can hardly breathe. And then the head of Mordred’s dick is against the back of his throat, and sliding in, and Galahad can feel himself choking. When Mordred pulls back, he’s light-headed, and so ready to do it again. He can’t help the moan that comes out when Mordred fills him again, and he closes his eyes, relaxes his jaw, and lets himself be used.

It isn’t long that Mordred takes him like that. Galahad can feel the quiver in his thighs above him, like he’s nearly too close, just before he pulls back gasping to lie on the bed. Galahad opens his mouth to speak, though his words would be little more than a sore croak, but thinks better of it. Mordred catches that and smiles. He surveys his work; Galahad lying helpless and tied, with a red, wet mouth and pink marks across his chest. His eyes trail down to the prominent bulge at Galahad’s crotch, and so Mordred reaches forward and opens the button, the zip, pulls Galahad’s trousers right the way off. In doing so, he rearranges Galahad back on the bed on his side and, watching him, comes in close for another kiss.

Their bodies press together, their lips, their chests, and Galahad kisses back with all he has, fucking Mordred’s mouth with his tongue like Mordred fucked his mouth, in the hope that it’ll just get him to come close. And it does, it works; Mordred opens his legs and rubs their dicks together, and as they touch Galahad sucks in air like he’s only just learnt to breathe. It’s still too slow; Mordred controls the movement, and he slaps Galahad’s arse whenever he tries to push for more, but it’s so good.

At some point, Mordred reaches behind himself and returns with a bottle of lube, squeezing some of it onto his fingers. He touches Galahad’s dick first, fingers feather light, then his perineum, working back towards his hole. And there, his fingers tease further, just the blunt tips of them still and wet against Galahad’s hole. He’s learnt, now, that he’s not allowed to push Mordred’s rhythm but that he can get away with moving in time with it, and so that’s what he does. He presses back against Mordred’s fingers, until just the first is breaching him. And then suddenly Mordred growls, and he takes Galahad by the waist and with a strength Galahad did not know he had, flips him.

He works Galahad open in earnest now, a pillow beneath his hips. Galahad feels full, impossibly full, with just one finger, but then too soon there’s two and the stretch hurts. But Mordred’s fingers fuck in and out of him quickly, and just as he thinks he might ask to pause they work deeper, and rub against his prostate. He moans at that, but now he has no punishment; just a scissoring of Mordred’s fingers before he pulls out. Galahad tries to look back for Mordred; he’s empty now, open, waiting, but he can see the movement of Mordred putting on a condom in his periphery, and cannot focus on Mordred himself.

And then he’s lined up, and he’s pushing in, it’s too much, he’s going to break - but then Mordred is seated, and gasping above him, and all Galahad feels is need. He shifts his hips a little, to get Mordred to do something, anything, to just _move_. And that may have been a mistake, because Mordred sets an unforgiving pace. Galahad’s dick rubs against the pillow, and Mordred hits just the right spot inside of him. He can hear the slick between them, and the slap of Mordred’s hips against his arse, and the slight groans that Mordred can’t quite suppress. Galahad tips his head back in the hopes of a kiss, and is rewarded by the biting press of Mordred’s lips, sucking down on his lip just as hard as he’s fucking into Galahad. There’s heat inside of him, and building around his dick, and he feels so very close to breaking, but also to coming harder than he ever has before.

Mordred comes first, buried deep inside him, biting down between Galahad’s shoulder blades. He rolls away almost immediately, and tugs without skill at the shirt holding Galahad’s wrists together.

“Touch yourself,” he instructs, voice rough, “Let me watch you come.”

And so Galahad does, with Mordred’s eyes on him. He thinks of nothing else, but Mordred’s hand on him, his lips, his teeth, his fingers and his dick deep inside him. His shoulders ache, and his arse, too, but most of all he feels so turned on. He comes, after just a few strokes, crying out Mordred’s name.

He loses himself for a little while, but when he returns Mordred is lying next to him, hand outstretched across the bed as if he wants to touch. It’s almost imperceptible, but he seems to be shaking. Galahad slides his hand over the sheets to brush his fingers against Mordred’s.

“Wow, love,” he murmurs. Mordred smiles just a little.

“You had fun?” he asks.

“I did,” Galahad says. “How did you know that I’d like it like that?”

“I didn’t know,” Mordred tells him, and pulls away, rising from the bed.

“Mordred?” Galahad asks, propping himself up on an elbow.

“You’re sticky,” Mordred explains. “I’ll get you a cloth.”

Galahad flops back against the pillows and waits there, warm, satiated, and utterly content.


	6. Chapter 6

“I have to leave,” Galahad moans. Mordred is tracing the line of his pecks with a finger, and he stops mid-line.

“Stay over,” Mordred tells him. Galahad smiles and rolls onto his side to kiss him.

“Oh, I want to stay. But I get up at four thirty in the morning to start work for the bakery, I don’t want to wake you.”

Mordred puts one hand in Galahad’s loose hair, holding him in place and pulling him in for one more kiss.

“Depends on how.”

“How what?” Galahad asks.

“How you wake me.”

Galahad laughs.

“No, it doesn’t. You’d hate me, and I really don’t want you to hate me.”

Mordred pulls him close again, but when Galahad kisses him he bites his lip and Mordred gasps, giving Galahad the space to slip free and to start putting on his clothes. As he does, he finds that flower from last night and slips it into his wallet, pressing it flat. Mordred rolls on the bed to watch him.

“I’ll call you a taxi,” he says. “This time of night, in your neighbourhood, you shouldn’t walk.”

Galahad rifles through the pockets of Mordred’s trousers and tosses him his phone from the floor. He calls, and they speak for a while as Galahad finishes dressing.

“There’ll be a car outside in five minutes,” Mordred says. Galahad smiles, and crouches in front of the bed for one final kiss.

“Thank you,” he says. “And thank you for tonight.”

“Again?” Mordred asks.

“Yeah,” Galahad assures him, “Yeah, we’ll do this again.”

 

\---

 

He gets out of the cab and climbs the stairs - slowly, because he aches perfectly as he moves. Galahad climbs into bed and holds that ache close to him, as if Mordred holds him still. Though he is bone-tired, though he knows he will have to wake only a few hours later, he struggles to settle, to sleep.

When he does, Mordred comes to him in his dreams. They don’t even do anything except sit together, watch a film, but Galahad’s body feels awake, heightened, unlocked. And when he opens his eyes, he feels it too. There is bread to be baked but he picks out eggs for an enriched dough. Everything is sweet today; rich, indulgent. He puts brioche in the oven and fills pastries with cream and jam. Humming to himself, he bakes more - little cakes that taste of almond or lavender, covered in a sweet glaze and decorated with sugar flowers. He creates masterpieces that morning, and when the shop opens they are adored.

Customers’ adoration is not what Galahad wants. It is nice to feel, but as he works Galahad pictures Mordred’s face, his hands, feeding him icing from the bowl. By the time Linet arrives, he’s half lost to the fantasy. Not of sex, only of being close to him. Because next to Mordred, everything feels right.

“So,” Linet gloats, “I take it the date went well.”

Galahad looks up from the coffee that he’s serving and can’t hold back his grin.

“Kind of,” he says, but he’s still smiling.

“Who went home with who?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. Galahad blushes, he can feel the heat coming from his face. That is answer enough.

“Galahad!” Linet cries, “I didn’t realise you were that easy!”

Galahad looks away.

“I really like him, Linet.”

She comes around the counter and slings an arm around his shoulders, using her other hand to pick one of the cakes out of the display and bite at it.

“I can tell,” she laughs, “You’re clearly happy - these are seriously good.”

She drops a kiss on Galahad’s cheek.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

“A little,” Galahad shrugs. Linet peels herself off him, swatting him away.

“Then get upstairs, go nap.”

Galahad lingers, despite the logic to her words. Linet laughs, understanding him once again almost better than he does himself.

“I’ll send him up if he visits.”

She kisses Galahad’s cheek once more.

“I am very pleased for you, you know,” she says. Galahad smiles and kisses her cheek back.

“I know.”

She turns, with that, to face the next customer with an apology.

“I’m sorry that took a while,” she says, “The owner of this place got spectacularly laid last night and it’s about time.”

The customer laughs awkwardly as she takes their order. There are a few more hot drinks and cakes before someone of interest steps up to the counter. And the first thing Linet thinks of is not the cut of his suit, not the handsome aspect of his face, but his smile; open and bright. Linet’s heart half stops. He’s beautiful.

“Was that just Mr Astolat leaving?” he asks.

“Yes,” Linet says, tipping her head to one side, “But can I help you?”

“I was hoping that I could meet him,” the man says, twisting his face up in an unaffected frown. “You see, he’s dating my brother, my now very happy brother. I met him this morning and he was singing. He never sings!”

“You’re Mordred’s brother?” she asks, “You look-”

“Nothing like him, I know,” he laughs, and he holds his hand out to shake. “Gareth Lothian.”

“Hi, Gareth,” Linet says. She takes his hand. “Do you want to order something, you know, in lieu?”

“Yeah,” Gareth says. He doesn’t let go of her hand, but he does look at the display. “I’d like your phone number, and whichever of those fancy cakes is your favourite.”

“Oh,” Linet says, as she stiffens, “Oh, that’s awkward.”

“What?” Gareth asks.

“Well, you don’t even know my name yet.”

“You’ll put it in my phone with your number, surely.”

“Well, no I won’t,” Linet says, tugging her hand away, “You presumptuous arse.”

“Hey,” Gareth says, “Women think that I’m charming.”

“I’m not any old woman,” Linet snaps.

“So I can see,” Gareth says, leaning into the counter even as she backs away. “And will you let me take you out?”

“No!”

“Shame,” Gareth says. “And can I have that cake?”

“No!” Linet cries, “Go on, get out!”

“I look forward to seeing you again,” Gareth says, and he turns to go. Despite herself, when he turns back to wave as he leaves, Linet finds herself smiling. And with that she’s screwed, she thinks to herself.

 

\---

 

“Hi there,” Mordred murmurs. He’s kneeling on the edge of the bed, watching Galahad as he tries to wake him. Galahad fidgets within the sheets and rolls towards the edge of the bed, his knees colliding with Mordred’s. Mordred reaches down, a hand on his hip where the covers have dropped down enough that he can see the gap between his t-shirt and his jogging bottoms. Mordred strokes his thumb along that line of skin and Galahad moans, his eyes opening in a flutter.

“Mordred,” he moans. Mordred starts to slip his fingers under Galahad’s waistband, but Galahad takes hold of his wrist.

“What time is it?” he asks.

“Around four,” Mordred says.

“Shit,” Galahad sighs, “We can’t, Linet needs to leave. But if you can stay a while, I’ll be closed up and finished by five-thirty.”

“Alright,” Mordred says. He has work, but that can wait. He wants, more than he’s ever wanted anything before. Still covered by the haze of sleep, Galahad pushes himself upright and rubs at his face.

“God, Mordred,” he says, “The things you do to me, love.”

“Kiss me before we go,” Mordred says, and Galahad does, licking into his mouth with the lazy want that he feels, just for a few minutes before he has to pull away. Mordred groans his disappointment. As Galahad steps away to wash his hands and put his apron on, Mordred’s fingers quiver.

“You’re my muse,” Galahad teases, “You should try some of the things that I baked this morning.”

“Oh yeah?” Mordred asks, shoving his hands between his thighs and begging his magic to settle down. He knows he should have driven out of the city limits and used it again, but his need to see Galahad was too urgent. He couldn’t even concentrate on his cases.

“I think you’ll like them,” Galahad says. He finishes up and steps back over, taking Mordred’s hand and kissing the corner of his mouth.

“You look incredible,” he tells Mordred, “I wish we didn’t have to go downstairs.”

Mordred knows by now not to tempt Galahad, as it gets him nowhere. Instead he pushes him towards the door, hiding his shaking hands back behind his back.

“If I help, will you finish early?” he asks.

“If you help, I’ll do anything you want,” Galahad promises.

“Fuck,” Mordred sighs.

“Yeah, that too,” Galahad laughs, starting downstairs.

Mordred takes a moment to follow, which is why Galahad sees it first. The man who stands, in the middle of the cafe, just as he emerges at the counter. He reaches into his jacket; it’s a testament to Galahad’s happiness that the gesture doesn’t register immediately.

“In the name of the Camelot Magical-” the man starts, wand in hand, and it’s at that point that Galahad screams out.

“Stop!” He pushes past Linet, climbs himself over the counter and pushes into the open space. “It’s me you want, don’t aim that at anyone else.”

There’s stillness in the bakery. No one dares to move, lest they draw the attention of the witch.

“Kill me,” Galahad says, hands up in surrender, “No one else.”

And then it becomes chaos. There’s this flash from behind the counter, a burst of light that explodes and then coalesces into a wall, slamming into the man with the wand. People are panicking, trying to get out of the shop. Mordred comes running from the stairs, and he sails over the counter to shove past Galahad. He clenches his fist, and more of that light emerges, in a wall that wraps around the man with the wand.

There’s a second where Mordred is in control, where he has the witch cordoned away. And then the man raises his wand and the walls break. He points it into the air - Mordred steps back and grabs Galahad by the waist. Galahad’s screaming, now -

“No!”

But the explosion comes regardless. There’s fire, everywhere, but Galahad doesn’t feel the heat. Nor do any of the patrons, as that same golden light flares around them. Just for a moment, but a moment is long enough to keep them alive.

In the embers, Mordred grabs Galahad by the hand and he holds it. Just for a moment, he looks into Galahad's eyes. And then he collapses.


	7. Chapter 7

He’s deaf, in the aftermath of the explosion. He never thought that was true, the blind ringing in the ears post-pressure wave, like they dub in on film soundtracks. But then he’d never thought of the smells of smoke and dust, the way they clamour together in his nostrils. He’d never thought of the flickering light, of the flames over black-bruised plastic countertops, and of the way the victims scurry, like uncovered mice.

Galahad is glad of the silence, just for a moment, because it gives him a chance to process. His bakery, his fortress against CMR control, his livelihood, his passion, is destroyed in a wreckage of brickwork and broken tables. He takes a fraction of a second to mourn, before practicalities take over. Looking up, and finds the ceiling cracked and damaged. It could come down at any moment. Luckily the explosion has blown out the glass of the windows, and so some of the patrons are already escaping that way. He gestures to those who have yet to move, points to what the others are doing, with his free hand

His other hand is clutched in Mordred’s. Mordred, his boyfriend, his love, who Galahad cannot deny illegally used magic mere moments ago to save his life - to save everyone’s lives. Mordred, who is an inexplicably young police superintendent. Mordred, who is passed out on the dirty floor.

Some may say that there is always a choice. For Galahad, it feels at least that there is none. He cannot hand Mordred to the police, not for saving lives. He knows what he has to do, and he knows that he has to act quickly.

Linet is standing already. She favours one leg over the other, but she seems well enough to be helping customers out of the window. Galahad’s ears hurt, but some sound has returned to him. He hopes that she is the same, and yells to her, gestures for her to come over.

“We have to leave,” he says, praying that lip-reading is amongst her many talents. “Before the police arrive. I need to hide Mordred. Can we stay at your place?”

Linet nods, and tucks her fingers into her pocket to bring out a key. She presses it into Galahad’s hand and points towards the kitchen. Smart as ever, Galahad thinks. The back of the building is still relatively intact, but none of the patrons are leaving through it. They can slip out, safely and unseen.

Galahad is glad of all the practice he has hefting sacks of flour, because a full-grown man is heavy, even one so slight, and Mordred shows no sign of waking. Quickly, Galahad takes him in a fireman’s lift over his shoulder, and makes his way out of the back door. He can hear sirens, though with his broken ears he cannot judge their distance. Galahad ducks into a nearby alleyway, one that the cars cannot drive down, and cuts through to the next road. From there, he traces steps he knows well to the flat where Linet lives with her sister, through streets drained of pedestrians as the explosion draws its crowd.

 

\---

 

The first thing that Mordred knows is the overpowering smell of roses. Too sweet and too fragrant, Mordred turns his head to get away from the stench and noses into something altogether more pleasant. He smells yeast, though with it comes the flare of smoke. Behind his eyelids, the memory of bright light sunbursts. Mordred snaps his eyes open, looking up at Galahad.

He looks tired. He’s covered in soot and dirt, and he looks exhausted. His mouth has the slightest downturn, as if he’s trying to cover his sadness and his anger with something else. Mordred wants to kiss it all away, to protect him, but he knows that it won’t work. His protection did little enough when he tried to use it back at the bakery.

Behind him, a girl paces. She looks nothing like Linet, and yet she looks like Linet. They have the same thin nose, the same full lips, but this girl looks like Linet at a beauty pageant. Her hair is dyed blonde, and curled. She wears lipstick and thick foundation. She points at him with fingers heavy under acrylic nails.

“He’s awake!” she crows. Mordred flops back on what seems to be her sofa, grabbing at a pillow to try to hide himself. But then Galahad dives over from where he was sitting on the far arm of the chair, and Mordred wants to hide no longer.

“You’re safe here,” Galahad says, “At least for a while, until they work out what happened. We’re at Linet’s place. This is her sister, Lyonesse.”

Mordred’s head hurts at all the noise, he wants to rub at his temples but he doesn’t. Instead he grabs at Galahad’s shirt and tugs him down for a kiss.

“You’re alive,” he says, his voice coming out hoarse.

“And everyone else who was in the bakery.” Galahad starts to smile as he says that. Mordred is tired and forgetful enough to reach out and touch his lips.

“Thank you,” Galahad says. Mordred feels the shape of the words from Galahad’s mouth to his fingers. They are bittersweet.

“The magic?” he asks.

“You saved me. You saved all of us.” Galahad takes his hand and holds it almost painfully tight. “I don’t care if you broke a thousand laws to do that. You did _good_.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” comes Lyonesse’s voice from somewhere behind Galahad. Mordred doesn’t look up at her. He can feel himself grimace at the thought that another person knows his secret.

“I’m sorry,” Galahad whispers, “I had to tell her.”

“You’re going to have to go to the CMR,” she continues blithely, as if this were all about some eyebrow plucking or party planning. “My fiance works for them, he can get you a meeting. You’re one of them now, they’ll hide you.”

Mordred’s eyes flare with fear and disgust.

“I think she’s right,” Galahad says, soft to cushion the blow. “If you go back to the police, they’ll only arrest you. I hate the CMR as much as anything but you need them, Mordred, they’re the only ones who know what to do with magic. They’re the only ones who can keep you safe.”

Mordred thinks about his eternal fear of revelation. He pictures Gareth, the best of his older brothers, holding out the iron cuffs for his wrists. He knows he could not take it. He nods, out of a lack of other choices.

“I’ll ring Mark, then,” Lyonesse says. “I’ll have him set up a meeting.”

She leaves the room in a clutter of high heels, and shortly afterwards they can hear her affected sweet voice through the wall.

“I’m going to be with you, every step of the way,” Galahad promises, taking Mordred’s other hand.

“You shouldn’t,” Mordred says. He tries to make sure that it sounds cold. If he lets any emotion into his voice at all, then Galahad will stay. And he wants Galahad to stay, but he cannot let that happen. He cannot bring this beautiful, brave man down with him.

“I’m staying,” Galahad says anyway. Of course he’d see right through Mordred. He doesn’t know what he was thinking, trying to pretend. Galahad’s eyes are sapphires through the waiting tears, and he presses his forehead to Mordred’s.

“I love you,” Galahad murmurs, so quietly that Mordred isn’t certain that he’s even said it. Mordred recoils from the words, still while he longs for them.

And then, too soon, Lyonesse is back in the room.

“Tonight,” she says, “They don’t want to waste any time. Mark will come and fetch you when it’s time.”

 

\---

 

Mark is a man who exudes unearned self-importance. He carries a gun on a holster under his jacket. He’s cleaning his flick knife when Galahad steps out of Linet’s room to meet him.

“You must be Mark,” he says. He holds his hand out for Mark to shake. Instead, Mark briefly levels the knife towards Galahad, the smallest of gestures and only almost a threat. Galahad folds his arms.

“There was a lot of interest when I mentioned your boyfriend,” Mark says, almost casually. “He’ll be meeting one of the high-ups tonight. Maybe even the big boss herself.”

Galahad bites the inside of his lip and tries not to scream. In just one moment, everything has changed. His enemies, the people who made him fear for his life every day, are now his only hope. He must not run from Morgan Le Fay, or Nimue. He must embrace them.

“You’re looking pale, there, kid,” Mark sneers, but Galahad is saved from having to answer him by Linet’s appearance. She swings a carrier bag across the room in an underarm throw; Galahad catches.

“I bought some new clothes,” Linet tells him. “They’re nothing much, just charity shop finds - the only places without CCTV. But they’ll fit, and they’re not burnt.”

“Thanks, Lin,” Galahad says. He pulls out a rough cotton shirt and runs it between his fingers. It’s hardly what Mordred must be used to, but then none of this is what any of them is used to. They all have to make adjustments in this uncharted territory. He slips back into the bedroom and steps over to the bed, sits on the edge next to where Mordred is now napping fitfully. He reaches out for Mordred’s shoulder to wake him, but before his fingers touch skin, Mordred is rolling over to him.

He’s taken his shirt off, and his sooted trousers hang low on his hips. Galahad can see the bones beneath pale skin. His hair is messy from the pillow, a sign of sleep, but despite that there are still dark, restless circles beneath Mordred’s eyes. Even exhausted as he is, Mordred reaches out and grabs hold of Galahad, pulls him down into a biting kiss. And Galahad moans, forgetting for just a moment that they aren’t safe, they aren’t happy. He pushes away after a breath, sighing at the loss, wishing that they could just stay in that room for the rest of eternity.

“Linet bought new clothes,” Galahad says, tipping out the bag onto the bed. “We need to get changed. It’s not long until we need to leave.”

Mordred levers himself upright and, resigned, gets changed.

 

\---

 

CMR sent a car, it stops and lets them out at the outskirts of the city, in the industrial zone. There’s a warehouse with boarded up windows, outside hoarding states that it will soon be demolished to make way for a state-of-the-art new manufacturing plant. In front of them, the barred door swings open. Galahad watches Mordred’s Adam’s apple shudder as he swallows, and then steps forward. Galahad leaves the car after him, tries to take his hand to give him strength, but Mordred shakes his head sharply. From behind him, Linet puts her hand on Galahad’s shoulder.

“I think he has to do this alone,” she says, and she takes Galahad’s hand herself.

“Come on,” she says, and they walk behind Mordred as he steps into the warehouse. There is an anteroom, with hooks that once served for workers to hang their coats before punching in. They turn a corner, past an office, and then another. A door opens in front of them.

Ahead, the main hall of the warehouse opens up like a cathedral of brick and exposed steel beams. Cracked windows form a clerestory high up in the walls, through which moonlight seeps in. They glisten, to Mordred’s eyes, with protective magic. Lower on the walls, orbs of light bob in niches that once housed machinery. And in front of them, spread over moulded cardboard boxes and oil drums and, inexplicably, an old forklift truck, sit the CMR.

Mordred recognises faces that were pinned to his wall. They’re grinning now - Mordred resists the urge to reach for a gun to wipe the expressions off their faces. He has no weapon now and, besides, to threaten them would only be to lose their protection.

“Come forwards,” one of them calls; a girl, responsible for the death of hundreds in a train derailment. She, of course, had walked away safely. Mordred keeps the scowl from his face and walks on, pace by pace. He does not think of Galahad and Linet standing behind him. He tries not to think at all.

As he nears the rear of the room, Mordred steps past the obstructions and can see, clearly, the woman at the focus of the gathering. She sits in an antique armchair, looking every inch her regal self though she wears a hoodie and jeans. Mordred looks her over. Her face is as seared onto his memory as Galahad’s - he has watched her in archive footage and stared at her photograph on his wall for far too long for it not to be. Morgan Le Fay. Witch, traitor. He stops a few yards short of where it was clearly orchestrated for him to stand, and he says nothing.

Behind him, Mordred hears Galahad’s footsteps as he tries to step forward, hears the intake of breath as he attempts to take over, but he holds out his arm and pushes Galahad back, to stand behind him, shielded.

Morgan stands, and a smile blooms on her mouth, one that tells that she has been waiting for this moment for years, for decades. She takes a step forward. In her hand, she holds a wand.

“Come forward, Mordred,” she calls out, “I want to see you. After all these years, I want to see my son.”


	8. Chapter 8

_ Son. _

Mordred’s knees threaten to buckle, but he balls his hands so tight that the pain in his knuckles takes over. He stands tall. His jaw juts out, just a little.

“I’m here,” he says. “Mordred Lothian, Superintendent. You’ve got me. You don’t need any more tricks.”

There, Morgan smiles. Mordred can read cruelty in people, better than most. It isn’t that which twists her lips. Nor is it pity, or at least not wholly. She steps into empty air from her makeshift dais, stepping on stairs made of nothing as she descends. There is dignity as she walks over to Mordred, and silence. The sound that her heels make resounds like a metronome, like a countdown. Then she holds out her hands and cups his face in them. Mordred stands firm, as if it is a test.

Morgan gazes at him in the silence for far too long. And as she does, he cannot help but look into her eyes. Eyes the exact same shade of blue as his own.

She is old enough, certainly. In reality, in all three dimensions there are certain things about her; about the way she frowns, the way she moves, that seem familiar.

“Mordred,” Galahad says quietly. “She looks awfully like you.”

“Tell me,” Mordred says. He snatches at her wrist, to pull her hands away from him, suddenly burnt by her touch. “Explain yourself.”

Morgan looks at her rejected hand, an expression of absolute disappointment over her face. It is only a moment, but it is noted. Then, she raises her hand and claps them once.

“Privacy, please,” she demands. At once, the others begin to leave - although there are some sounds of protest. Mordred does not hear them.

In his mind, he is seven years old again, and his mother is screaming at his father.

“It isn’t fair, Lot! You don’t treat any of the other boys like that! It was an accident!”

And then, as he’s fleeing, running up the stairs away from the voices.

“What does it matter? It’s not like he’s our son.”

And Mordred had known. He’d always known. He wasn’t the same as his brothers. If he had thought about it, he would have thought that he was the product of an affair on Morgause’s behalf, though. He never would have expected whatever this is.

“Privacy,” Morgan reiterates. Mordred glances behind himself. There, Galahad and Linet stand, still, looking at each other for direction.

“They stay,” Mordred says.

Morgan folds her arms, looking at Mordred.

“I had thought this would be just the two of us.”

“They stay.”

Linet looks over at Morgan and puts a hand up like a child in a classroom.

“We’ll go and stand at the side, you won’t even know we’re here.” Taking Galahad’s arm, she leads him over to a pile of cardboard boxes. “Come on, we’ll go and sit down, before she kills us.”

Galahad’s mouth opens in protest, but he sits down as commanded. Just out of earshot.

“Right,” Morgan says. “Well, now that’s done with-”

“How did it happen?” Mordred interrupts.

“Ah,” Morgan says, put off guard. “Well, I gave birth to you not long before I joined Nimue. I thought that this would all be over a lot faster, you see, and then I could reclaim you.”

Mordred scowls down at her. He is a good head taller than her.

“Who is my father?”

“That was part of the problem,” Morgan starts. “Because he has so much power-”

“Who?” Mordred demands, near yelling.

“Look, if you’ll just shut up for a minute,” Morgan snaps, then she turns away with a groan. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to go like this.”

Mordred fixes her a look.

“When I was younger I wanted to be Queen. Back then, it was looking as if magic would become fully legal, the licensing and the protections lifted. I thought - we all did - that the King would marry a witch, to tie all witches to his rule. And I wanted it to be me. I studied hard, I thought it was my right.”

“Get to the point,” Mordred interjects.

“I am,” she says. “I slept with the King. And nine months later I was unmarried, and the laws were getting worse, and I was very, very pregnant.

“I tried to follow those laws, so that I could stay with you. I really did. But when you were born, and you came out blue and half starved of air, I broke them all to save you. No one knew, of course; back then they couldn’t track it. But people suspected. I would never have any influence again.

“And more than that, I knew then that I could not give up magic. And, if you had it to, I could not ask you to give it up. I had to change things.

“I was too weak, after you were born. Nimue started it all. She had been Arthur’s advisor, amongst others. You see, Arthur was not inherently bad. He just listened to the wrong people. She rebelled, she began the demonstrations. And when the police came down and fired tear gas at my people, she helped them to defend themselves. After that I went to Arthur. I decided to use what little leverage that I had with him - you - to make him hear me out. But when he wouldn’t listen, I got angry. I lashed out.

“I knew after that that I couldn’t go back. So I left you with my sister-”

“Moth- Morgause is your sister?” Mordred spits out, confused and appalled.

“There is a lot that you were never taught. Least of all, how to use that magic of yours.”

“So you’ll help?”

“Of course I’ll help,” Morgan says. She’s smiling now, and when she reaches for Mordred’s hand he lets her take it. “I’ve been waiting for you to find me since the day I left.”

 

\---

 

She takes them out of the city to a cabin, invisible from the road, nestled in forest and overlooking a lake. Galahad and Mordred, that is. Linet, she sends home.

The cabin is beautiful. There is a terrace, where Galahad finds he likes to sit and read and watch the trees and the water. There is a comfortable master bedroom, with a balcony and a hot tub. There is a large kitchen, where Galahad can cook whatever he likes. Galahad only wishes that they didn’t have to share it with Mordred’s newly discovered mother.

The first day consists of emergency magic lessons for Mordred, and what feels like CMR witness protection for Galahad. He is not allowed to leave the property. He can’t contact anyone. And so he spends his day baking, using up the supplies in the kitchen, and then reading.

It’s late when Mordred comes to him. He doesn’t speak. He just sits on the terrace, in a t-shirt so thin that he must be cold. He’s eating one of the cookies that Galahad made.

“Hey,” Galahad says. “How did it go?”

Mordred sighs, shakes his head once.

“Are you hungry? I could make dinner?”

He shakes his head again.

Galahad glances at him, so nervous that he’ll do something wrong. Mordred is so taut that Galahad believes, if he touches him wrong, Mordred will break. He looks back at his book, then to Mordred. And then again. It strikes him that, for all he thinks he loves Mordred, he doesn’t really know him. This is no problem for him; he knows all he needs to to love. But for Mordred, that might be different. Galahad could step wrong, so easily.

Eventually, he gets up and he sits on the arm of Mordred’s chair. Before Mordred can react, he reaches down and kisses Mordred softly, hands on his shoulders. And before Galahad knows what’s happening, Mordred’s hands are on him, pulling him close, clawing at him. His kiss is deeper, devouring Galahad. Galahad moans, on edge in an instant, his hands pulling up into Mordred’s hair.

They make it to the table. Mordred lifts Galahad and lays him there. He bites marks into Galahad’s neck and, while Galahad cries out in pleasure, he opens both their trousers. Galahad can feel the cold metal of his fly through the thin material of his boxers, pressing up against his balls. Mordred shoves them together and wraps his hand around them both, and it’s fast and dirty.

It’s only when they’re both done, and Mordred is lying on his back on the decking a little way off, and Galahad is gasping the air back into his lungs that Galahad realises; Morgan could have looked out of the wrong window at any time and seen her son fucking his boyfriend. Maybe Mordred wanted her to, he thinks. Maybe Mordred didn’t think. Maybe he didn’t care.

 

\---

 

Linet is cooking dinner, singing along to the radio, when the hammering starts on the door. For a moment she doesn’t know what to do - but it’s only a moment - before she picks up the longest knife in the block and walks to the door with it hidden behind her back. With what Lyonesse is involved in, they could hardly live without a chain on the door. Linet locks it into place and hides the knife behind the wood before opening the door just a fraction.

The man behind the door is alone, and he looks scared. Linet recognises him from the bakery as a customer and, more importantly, Mordred’s brother.

“Where is he?” Gareth asks urgently, his hand pressing on the door.

“Who?” Linet asks, feigning innocence.

“My brother, where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Linet says truthfully.

“You must know!”

“I really don’t. But look, if you let me shut the door to take the chain off you can come in.”

When Linet has the door closed, she is sorely tempted to lock it and never open it again. But she doesn’t. Instead, she lets Gareth in with a wide smile, hiding the knife away in a nearby vase behind the barrier of the door as she does.

“Gareth Lothian. What makes you think that I’d have the first idea where your brother is?”

“I know that he and Galahad came here after the explosion,” he says. “It’s only a matter of time before the police work that out too.”

“I guess you’d better sit down,” Linet sighs. She gestures to Lyonesse’s awful pink sofa. Gareth sits gingerly on the edge. For once, as he does, Linet is glad of her sister’s penchant for perfume and potpourri. It masks any clinging smell of soot and dust. Linet pulls her hair back form her face and she thinks.

“I know that you helped them,” Gareth says. “I just need to find him, before the police do. He’s in a lot of danger.”

Linet paces up and down the small room in front of the sofa.

“Oh, shut up, and let me think.”

Gareth glares up at her momentarily, but he stops talking while Linet takes another circuit of the room. Restless, he shifts on the sofa, until he can stay silent no longer.

“We can track his magic,” he blurts. “My department will find Mordred, but they can’t get to him first. They’ll arrest him.”

“And Galahad, too,” Linet says.

“You’ve got to tell me where they went.”

“Does Mordred know about the tracking?” Linet asks. Gareth sighs, and shakes his head.

“He knows that we can track within the city, but recently we were getting some spikes outside of the city limits. The team started work on a mobile device, something will be ready within weeks.”

“Shit,” Linet says, and she stops pacing and looks down at Gareth. “He went to see the CMR for help. They said that they’d hide him and teach him to control his magic.”

“So he’ll be practicing magic. A sitting target.”

“We’ve got to find them,” Linet says. “We’ve got to warn them.”

“You’ve got to get out of this place, too. The police will find you and arrest you for helping them.”

“Right,” Linet says, taking control. “I’m going to pack a bag, and then you’re going to take me somewhere safe.”

“Can you contact the CMR the way you did before?” Gareth asks Linet’s back as she retreats into her bedroom. She thinks to say yes, for a moment, before realising that her sister and her boyfriend have been gone ever since Linet got back. In hiding from the police, without telling her. With a twisting of her gut, Linet calls out back to him.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then we have to find them some other way.”

Linet comes out a short while later with a rucksack over her shoulder.

“Are you ready?” she asks, “Can we leave?”

“We should go as soon as possible,” Gareth says, “To give us a head start. My car’s downstairs.”

He opens the door for her, and Linet leaves. As she passes him, she glances at his face. He’s Mordred’s brother, but beyond that she knows nothing. She wonders if she can trust him, if his concern about Mordred is real; if she’s walking into more danger than she’s leaving.


End file.
